posted at 4:01 pm on October 12, 2013 by Erika Johnsen

I’m seeing a fair few headlines about how Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bunch of gun-control legislation on Friday afternoon, and indeed, the California Democrat declined to enact into law several typically inept/inane progressive attempts at reducing gun violence, including the potential doozie of adding all semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines to the state’s list of banned “assault” weapons. Brown himself honestly admitted that such a ban would accomplish precisely nothing to enhance the public safety:

VETOED:

AB 169 – Roger Dickinson’s bill would have limited the transfer of handguns deemed “unsafe.” Gov. Brown wrote in his veto message, “I do not support restricting sales in this way without evidence that such restrictions would improve public safety.”

AB 180 – AB 180 would have allowed the City of Oakland to pass gun control measures that are stricter than the state norm. Brown said the bill, authored by Asm. Rob Bonta, would only create confusion.

SB 299 – Concord Sen. Mark DeSaulnier’s bill would have required owners to report stolen guns within seven days. Brown argued that “responsible people report the loss of theft of a firearm and irresponsible people do not. I remain skeptical that this bill would change those behaviors.”

SB 374 – Another controversial bill, Sen. Darrell Steinberg’s SB 374. It would have banned the sale of semi-automatic rifles with removable magazines. Brown wrote in his veto message that he doesn’t believe such a “blanket” legislation would enhance public safety.

SB 567 – Sen. Hannah Beth-Jackson’s bill would have changed the legal definition of what a shotgun is. Brown felt the bill was not necessary.

SB 755 - The law, introduced by Sen. Lois Wolk of Davis, would have added drug abuse convictions to the list of what would prohibit someone from owning a gun for 10 years. Again, Brown felt the bill was unnecessary.”

Their key issue: the veto of SB 374 by Senator Darrell Steinberg,” which conservatives called called “draconian” — but which progressives supported for its ban on future sales of most semi-automatic rifles.

We just talked to Paul Song, head of the progressive Courage Campaign, who told us that his group was “devastated” by Brown’s actions.

“We expected that in a solidly blue state, where he doesn’t have to worry about recall, he would have shown a little bit of courage or backbone — and set an example for the test of the country. He let us down,” Song said. …

Here’s the full statement released from Song by the Courage Campaign:

“Today, in vetoing a series of gun safety measures, Governor Brown choose to put craven political considerations above the safety and well-being of California’s more than 38 million residents.”

Gov. Brown did sign, however, a slew of new measures that will ramp up California’s already prohibitive gun laws, including selling high-capacity magazine conversion kits and allowing the Justice Department to extend waiting times for background checks. The one stirring the most controversy, however, was the long sought-after prize of the state’s so-called environmentalist groups: Eventually outlawing the practice of hunting with lead ammunition. The greens in California are feeling pretty good right about now:

Gov. Jerry Brown approved a long-sought ban on lead hunting ammunition Friday, one of 11 firearms measures he signed that are designed to tighten controls on ownership, storage and types of weapons and ammunition available in California. …

Brown, a gun owner who has a home in Oakland, delighted environmentalists when he signed AB711, making California the first state in the nation to ban hunting with lead bullets. The law requires all ammunition used for hunting in California to be made out of something other than lead, such as copper or steel, by July 2019.

“It’s a big win for people and birds,” said David Yarnold, the president of the National Audubon Society, which has claimed for years that leftover fragments from lead ammunition were killing nontarget animals, including the endangered California condor. “This was a commonsense solution. It is not a ban on hunting. It’s a ban on poisons in the food chain.”

Brown acknowledged that hunters are typically America’s most conscientious conservationists, but went ahead and signed the bill anyway — and seeing as how non-lead ammo is both more expensive and often falls in the category of “armor-piercing” that the federal government reserves the right to prohibit, that could mean a lot more trouble down the road.

“I am concerned, however, the impression left from this bill is that hunters and sportsmen and women in California are not conservationist,” [Brown] said in a statement. “Since 1930, hunters have done more than any other community to conserve species and their habitats and this is a lasting conservation legacy.”

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association based in Newtown, said it was dismayed that Brown banned lead bullets, though it was pleased with his veto of the semiautomatic rifle bill. …

The lead-bullet law “amounts to a virtual ban on hunting because the federal government considers most types of non-lead ammunition to be ‘armor piercing’” and limits its manufacture and sale, Keene said. “Many types of standard hunting long rifles are not compatible with alternative metal ammunition or will require significant modification.”

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The lead ammo bans are funny, sort of. The left knows that there is zero harm to the environment from lead ammunition — so tiny is the amount of lead released into an atmosphere where lead exists naturally in huge quanitities.

No, the bans serve one purpose: to restrict a cheap ammunition and replace it with an expensive one (roughly triple the cost). Yet another war on poor people by the left. Who will have a harder time hunting or defending themselves? Why…poor people, of course.

Does a ban on lead affect a white lawyer making $250,000 a year? A banker? A successful sales executive, CFO, business owner? No. A bus driver? Hell yes. A lady who walks home to a south central LA neighborhood from the bus station? Hell yes.

This is only the most recent batch of 2nd Amendment infringement bills … Brown has effectively killed LEGAL gun ownership and use in California.
——————————————-
Back in May, Brown signed SB53 into law, which requires ammunition buyers to submit to a background check and purchase an ANNUAL ‘Ammunition Purchase Permit‘ issued by the Department of Justice.

Heller was specifically about a semi-automatic pistol. All of which have removable magazines. The court stated it was the self-defense gun of choice. It should also be noted that less than 350 civilians die every year from long guns, and that includes suicides and accidents.

Knoxville and eastern Tennessee are looking pretty good. There are actually a lot of conservative former Californians (military, military contractors, and the nuclear research facility) already there. Moved most of my firearms there, I’m soon to follow.

…it is a shame…that so many conservative people in California have had to put up with so many progressives…for so many decades!
…they don’t punish people in prison that much!…it’s been a life sentence!

It’s too bad Reginald Denny didn’t have something with a high capacity magazine out there in California. I suppose libs would find that insensitive and prefer the outcome of permanent brain damage for an innocent white guy. Then again, I suppose Denny would have been Zimmerman x100 if he was armed with the sort of firepower that would have put down all of his would-be assailants, all of whom could have been Obama’s sons if he had sons.

The hunting community could take a page from the racing-yacht builder’s handbook, who when they were looking for a substitute for lead, settled on “depletalloy”, aka Depleted Uranium.
Denser – same weight in a smaller volume, but a bit more expensive.
What would the Enviro-Nazi’s say to that?
If it’s OK for our military, why would the deer object?
Heads would implode/explode.

Reginald Denny was, like most people in CA, unarmed, since it was (and is) virtually impossible for an “average” citizen to acquire a CCW – leaving the possession of a firearm to the thugs who will attack you, and the police who will not defend you.

Reginald Denny was, like most people in CA, unarmed, since it was (and is) virtually impossible for an “average” citizen to acquire a CCW – leaving the possession of a firearm to the thugs who will attack you, and the police who will not defend you.

Another Drew on October 12, 2013 at 5:48 PM

I think I remember hearing at the time that the cops were a couple blocks away and refusing to go in to help or they were ordered to stand down while Denny was getting his brains bashed in.

It might be an incident to hit libs with on these media panels once in a while. Make them say that the Denny outcome was a much better outcome than a Denny armed with high capacity firepower. They’d have to say that. They will admit that they’d prefer that Zimmerman had his head bashed in and died than pulled a gun to end the beating and kill his assailant who looks like Obama’s son would look like.

While I strongly disapprove of Brown’s signing any of these bills, I’m surprised and gratified that he vetoed most of the most burdensome ones. I was so sure he’d sign the semi-auto ban, I ordered an S&W M&P 15 last Thursday.

Still, the lead ammo ban is asinine in the extreme. Environmentalists can’t show any harm from the miniscule amounts of lead put into the system by hunters. The law is based on their assertions alone. The law is obviously intended as a de facto ban on all shooting.

On top of this, non-lead ammo will result in far more wounded animals escaping to die painful death from infection, since, whatever else may be true about it, non-lead ammo is an inefficient killer.

I recommend Joel Kotkins essay “The New Feudalism” about how California has degenerated into a feudal state with a Progressive aristocracy and downwardly mobile if not vanishing middle-class. It’s the road to serfdom materializing. Jerry Brown is one of the great enduring village idiots in modern American politics. Just think about the fact that he spectacularly failed as governor almost 40 years ago and now is back again to finish the job. How stupid must a people be to let this happen?

The lead ammo bans are funny, sort of. The left knows that there is zero harm to the environment from lead ammunition — so tiny is the amount of lead released into an atmosphere where lead exists naturally in huge quanitities.

Jaibones on October 12, 2013 at 4:18 PM

Disclaimer: I am anti-hunting and don’t even own a gun, but can you link to some credible studies proving lead bullets are not a danger to the environment?

Still, the lead ammo ban is asinine in the extreme. Environmentalists can’t show any harm from the miniscule amounts of lead put into the system by hunters. The law is based on their assertions alone.

Tyrone Slothrop on October 12, 2013 at 6:06 PM

Same question I asked to Jaibones above. You’re asserting (alone, I might add) that there is no harm caused by those lead bullets.

Here in New Hampshire, the majority 52% to be exact) of all deaths of Loons between 1976 and 2000 were caused by a single source-lead in fishing jigs and fishing sinkers. Confirmed in all cases by autopsy of the dead birds. We now ban lead sinkers.

Isn’t it possible that some of those lead bullets could also get into the food chain, when the hunter is, say, shooting at waterfowl and the bullet misses and goes into the water?

Isn’t it possible that some of those lead bullets could also get into the food chain, when the hunter is, say, shooting at waterfowl and the bullet misses and goes into the water?

Del Dolemonte on October 12, 2013 at 6:38 PM

That would be “shot” from a shotgun. Some shot is lead, but there are alternatives. There is a move towards “green” ranges using total jacketed bullets or encapsulated jacket bullets. I think they are marketed as e-range bullets.

Disclaimer: I am anti-hunting and don’t even own a gun, but can you link to some credible studies proving lead bullets are not a danger to the environment?

Same question I asked to Jaibones above. You’re asserting (alone, I might add) that there is no harm caused by those lead bullets.

Here in New Hampshire, the majority 52% to be exact) of all deaths of Loons between 1976 and 2000 were caused by a single source-lead in fishing jigs and fishing sinkers. Confirmed in all cases by autopsy of the dead birds. We now ban lead sinkers.

Isn’t it possible that some of those lead bullets could also get into the food chain, when the hunter is, say, shooting at waterfowl and the bullet misses and goes into the water?

That was back in 1986. At the time of the original lead shot ban on the Atlantic Flyway, steel shot was the only alternative. The result was the po0pularity of first 10-gauge, and then 12-gauge 3 1/2″ shotguns for migratory bird shooting, because to throw a sufficiently dense pattern with the lighter steel shot, you simply needed more pellets than could be carried in the standard 12-gauge 2 1/2″ or 3″ shells. Later, bismuth shot superseded the steel shot, but since bismuth’s density is only 86% of lead’s, you still need more shot pellets.

BTW, the first people to feel the wrath of the enviros weren’t gun owners- they were gamers. In the late Seventies, several “deep-eco” groups launched campaigns against the use of lead in metal gaming figures (15mm, 20mm, 25mm ) and collectors’ figures (54mm to 120mm). Since around 1980-84, most such figures have been made from pewter, rather than lead. Pewter is an alloy of 92-99%% tin plus copper, bismuth, or even silver. Lead can also be used, but it’s not for obvious reasons. Ral Partha, the single biggest maker of such figures, actually obtained a patent for their lead-free pewter alloy mix under the trade-name “Ralidium”.

Pewter shot is also used on the Flyway and elsewhere. Being considerably less dense than lead or bismuth, it is not as satisfactory. Historically, its main function in bullet making was as a hardener in bullet-casting alloys composed mainly of…lead.

The thing being overlooked here (or perhaps being not mentioned deliberately and with malice aforethought) is that all of the alternatives except bismuth result in a harder bullet core. Another term for that, in military as well as anti-gun group parlance, is “armor-piercing”. Since I don’t expect them to ever change their definitions of that term, expect this movement to end with an attempt to ban all ammunition, period.

BTW; During WW2, especially after 1942, most German 9 x 19mm Parabellum pistol and submachine gun ammunition had their full-metal-jacketed bullets cored with sintered zinc, due to shortages of lead. The 480D DWM load fired a 123-grain bullet at over 1600 feet-per-second from the 9.9″ barrel of an MP-38/40 SMG, and at 50 meters could easily penetrate the sides of most U.S. M3 halftracks, simply because zinc is harder than lead. The M3’s side armor was only 1/4″ thick, but still, it’s the principle of the thing.

Considering that we started the legislative year with literally 60 anti-gun, anti-2A bills, the few that were signed are a victory.

AB 711 is the worst of the lot that Brown signed, and we have until 2019 to litigate. The science is on the side of hunters, but after losing three rounds with the Fish and Game (now Fish and Wildlife) commission, the greenietards got their way with the legislators. It is not over so we are not done fighting.

It has been a tough year, but for the most part the Second Amendment groups stuck together and fought well. The libs will be back, but we will be ready, again.

Games Workshop went to pewter and plastic right after RP did, too. I still have an unbuilt GW Daleks and Cybermen kit. (And no, it ain’t for sale; I still need to do the late white-and-gold Daleks and a Heavy Weapon Dalek.)

It occurs to me that, California being California, every year there the single biggest source of “gun-related” lead in the environment isn’t hunting, or even civilian target shooting; it’s law enforcement.

LAPD used to be the best marksmen in the country, back when they used .38 revolvers. Today, with high-capacity 9mm autos, they tend to substitute “spray-and-pray” tactics for marksmanship. (Look up the North Hollywood shootout, sometime; like the FBI’s 1986 Miami debacle’ with Platt and Matix, it was a failure of tactics and marksmanship, not weapon technology.)

Considering LAPD alone probably puts more lead out every year than all the civilian shooters in the state combined, maybe the logical response to this is the ammunition companies refusing to sell any lead-containing ammunition to any law enforcement organization in the state of California.

If the LEO balk, the manufacturers should point out that under the law, they could be charged with environmental violations if any lead from their products is “released”. As such, the manufacturers would simply be acting in accordance with the law, and their desire to avoid court action.

The LEO- including the state government- can abide by their own lead ban, or do without.

Yes, it is Draconian. Sauce for the goose. The only way to defeat foolish or fanatical people is to make them feel the consequences of their own lunacy.

And oh yes- the armed bodyguards all the political and entertainment elite’ of the state see as their just due? No lead bullet rounds for their machine pistols, either.

“We expected that in a solidly blue state, where he doesn’t have to worry about recall, he would have shown a little bit of courage or backbone — and set an example for the test of the country. He let us down,” Song said.

I’d say he showed a lot of backbone as Gov. of a blue state by telling you Marxist gun grabbers to go pound sand.

“It’s a big win for people and birds,” said David Yarnold, the president of the National Audubon Society, which has claimed for years that leftover fragments from lead ammunition were killing nontarget animals, including the endangered California condor.

There is no scientific study to back up this ‘claim’. But, it’s okay to grind up millions of birds with windmills. Wackos 1, Birds 0.

We knew this wouldn’t end well for the folks in CA when moon beam got back into office. Be careful out there touting your state and how wonderful it is to live there and own a weapon. The more of them that move in, the move it will start to resemble CO and then horrors of horror CA. What are the greenies and libs going to do when critters and predators over run the cities. Helena, MT, has had a feral deer problem for years. Animals wander where they want to. Where are the 2nd amendment lawsuits on all this infringement?

What are the greenies and libs going to do when critters and predators over run the cities. Helena, MT, has had a feral deer problem for years. Animals wander where they want to.

Kissmygrits on October 13, 2013 at 9:11 AM

The “green” ideal was shown graphically by the History Channel series Life After People. (The first episode can be seen here.)

They dream of a world where Man no longer oppresses Holy Mother Gaia. But somehow they, her True Defenders, are still around, with just enough slaves to make their lives easy. And they still have all their neat tech toys, in spite of no infrastructure.

And all animals are gentle and kind, and eat from your hand. And the lions and tigers are all good Vegens.

Note I didn’t say their worldview was rational, realistic, or even possible. Short of genocide, which is something “Utopians” have a lot of experience at attempting.

Wasn’t it Bill Ayres that said they may have to kill 25 million to achieve their dream?

chewmeister on October 13, 2013 at 9:28 AM

That was his minimum number. His optimum that he was holding out for was 50 million. He believed that below that figure, no method of “disposal” (death camps, Stanleyville-style massacres, etc.) was “cost-effective”.

Rather like Stalin’s observation;

An article in the Christian Science Monitor dated 1932 describes a meeting that included George Bernard Shaw, Lady Astor, and Stalin:

Although the interview which the Shaw-Astor party had with Stalin was theoretically secret, the story is told in Moscow that hardly had his guests been shown into the room when Lady Astor exuberantly opened the conversation with this remark: “Mr. Stalin, how long are you going to continue killing people?”

The Soviet Dictator quietly answered: “As long as it is necessary.”

Whether or not this story is true, it is illustrative of the Communist conception of government.

Not to mention deep-ecos, and “progressives” in general.

Some argue that these are “extreme” measures ascribed to them by their “enemies”- like me. I simply follow the Will Rogers theorem;

“I don’t make jokes. I just read he papers and report the facts.”

People who repeatedly fantasize about everyone but themselves being their slaves, or just dead, need to be taken seriously. The Zodiac Killer was an example. (See his statement on the subject here.)

Also, I’ve always maintained that people follow belief systems (religions, political or social movements, etc.) which sanctify them doing whatever they were going to do anyway. Meaning, people like Ayers do not need a reason to kill; they just want an excuse.

Rather like Zodiac, or his fictional counterpart Scorpio in Dirty Harry (1971), they do it because they like it.

A lot of folks here miss the point: the lead ammo ban (which I decry) is “only” lead ammunition for hunting. It directs the Fish and Game (Wildlife, whatevs) to come up with regulations prohibiting lead ammunition for hunting — and then LT 1 July 2019.

The others that he vetoed were HUGE particularly AB 374. In all cases, I recommend you read ALL of the obligatory signing/veto letters that Brown wrote to the legislature in conjunction with his action. There are links associated with each bill here. Of particular note was Brown’s recognition of the ineffectiveness of AB 374 to make the public any safer. He says that the bill not only does not achieve that, it would have the unhappy side-effect of allowing virtually any semi-automatic firearm to be so classified.

Read the veto letter. It is a big “F.U.” top the wold-eyed libs who put this piece of codswallop together.

I gotta believe that he and his ilk were/are a tad leery of 2A infringement lawsuits and not inviting trouble.

Tangential aside: Del, you live in Cow Hampshire and really are anti-hunting?

Here in New Hampshire, the majority 52% to be exact) of all deaths of Loons between 1976 and 2000 were caused by a single source-lead in fishing jigs and fishing sinkers. Confirmed in all cases by autopsy of the dead birds. We now ban lead sinkers.

Disclaimer: I am anti-hunting and don’t even own a gun, but can you link to some credible studies proving lead bullets are not a danger to the environment?

Tennessee’s wonderful if we can get rid of Alexander and Corker. And a big plus, no state income tax..

That is where I will be at the end of this month. I’ve been in CA since 1993 and I really do not see any chance of turning it around anymore. We are closing on a house about an hour south of Nashville, so I will be helping to try to vote out Corker and Alexander, as well.